"You know I can't help having red hair," protested Joy, coming straight to the point. "And if your grandfather had always dressed you in costumes, you couldn't get to be modern all at once, either. I think I'm doing very well."
John threw back his fair head and laughed.
The idea of his grandfather, who had been a wholesale hardware merchant, with a New England temperament to match, "dressing him in costumes," was an amusing one, and he said as much.
Joy laughed, too.
"Well, there, you see!" she said triumphantly. "There's a great deal in not having handicaps. Why, there was a poet used to write things as if he were me, all about that, and I couldn't stop him. One began:
'I was a princess in an ivory tower:
Why did you sit below and sing to me?'"
"Well," said John, as she paused indignantly, "I'll be the goat. Why did he sit below and sing to you?"
"Because he wanted the pull Grandfather could give him, as far as I could make out," replied Joy with vigor. "And I don't call it a bit nice way to act!"
She did not quite know why John laughed this time. But she was very glad that he was not bored at being with her.
"Oh, Joy, Joy!" he said. "I take it back. You are not medieval—entirely. Or, if you are, princesses in ivory towers are more delightful figures than I've always thought them."